• New design allows for using less steel in concrete beams

    NC State researchers discover how to use 30 percent less reinforcing steel in the manufacture of the concrete beams; the success of the project is already drawing interest from the concrete industry

  • Designing the world's first purpose-built law enforcement vehicle

    Yellow Jackets researchers help an Atlanta-based start-up design the world’s first vehicle designed specifically to meet the patrol needs of law enforcement agencies

  • German high-tech sector holds up

    Turnover in German-made IT, telecommunications, and digital consumer electronics will hold steady at about €145 billion — still, the German high-tech industry would perform worse than the global high-tech sector as a whole, which is expected to boost sales about 3 percent to €2.416 trillion

  • New building design withstands earthquake simulation

    Wolverines researchers used steel fiber-reinforced concrete to develop a better kind of coupling beam that requires less reinforcement and is easier to construct

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  • ASCE assigns Grade of D to U.S. infrastructure

    Civil engineers association assigns a D grade to U.S. infrastructure, and says $2.2 trillion in repairs needed

  • NASA working on sonic boom-less jets

    Sonic booms are one of the major downsides of supersonic jets; they may not matter much over the battlefield, but are a hindrance in civilian aviation — the noise was sufficient to restrict the Mach-2 Concorde to subsonic speeds when over land

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  • Alps laboratory tests methods of storing nuclear waste

    Two test tunnels in Switzerland are used to study methods of storing nuclear waste; many scientists from around the world take part in the research

  • Northrop Grumman unveils the X-47B

    The large UAV — it has a 62-ft. wingspan and weighs around 45,000 pounds at takeoff — is the U.S. military’s principal vanguard for a potential new age of stealthy, autonomous combat aircraft

  • High-powered laser for refueling aircraft

    Moving military units from theater to theater is a challenge for the military’s lift capabilities; an integral part of such capabilities is the ability to refuel aircraft in mid-flight, which is dangerous; researchers offer a way to use laser to recharge the plane’s batteries; for now the system is limited to surveillance UAVs, but the developers envision it being used for larger planes

  • Making older buildings safer during earthquakes

    Buildings being built now in earthquake-prone regions are designed better to withstand tremors; trouble is, for a long while yet, most of the buildings in which people live and work were built before new earthquake-related design concepts and new materials were available; UC San Diego researchers look for ways to make these buildings safer

  • A simpler route to invisibility

    Two years ago Duke University researchers built an invisibility cloak — a device that can make objects vanish from sight, at least when viewed using a narrow band of microwave frequencies; researchers now show how to create cloaks that work across a wider range of frequencies

  • Flexible, flapping flying machines may be on the horizon

    Rigid wings and rotors have made aircraft very successful; nature, however, prefers flexible, flapping flying structures — just look at birds; indeed, the most efficient and acrobatic airfoils in nature are the flexible wings of the bat; Brown University researchers want to adopt the bat’s approach to flying for human use

  • Better ground radar to find land mines

    There are more than 100 million land mines buried in 68 countries around the world; more than 2,000 people are killed or injured by land mine explosions each month; University of Missouri engineer creates more sensitive, safer land mine detectors

  • ESA's gamma-ray technology used to detect dirty bombs

    The European Space Agency has licensed its gamma-ray detection technology to a U.K. company; the latter has signed a contract worth $222 million with DHS to next-generation radiation gamma-ray detection and identification system

  • Earthquake's trampoline effect

    During earthquakes the ground not only shakes from side to side, but also bounces up and down; this has important implications for designing quake-proof structures